


Reasons Not To Bring Holy Water To Work

by asianfrustration13



Series: PNWS Intern Ficlets [1]
Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Ficlet, Gen, Holy Water, PNWS Shenanigans, implied demonbro!Strand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 11:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6192457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asianfrustration13/pseuds/asianfrustration13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a college student just wants college credits, an intern wants to do his job, and Alex tells Strand that he is smoking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reasons Not To Bring Holy Water To Work

**Author's Note:**

> I really should be studying for an exam right now, but here I am...

All Joanna wanted to do was get college credit.

So when she brought a closed bottle of holy water to the PNWS station, she was not expecting anything special to happen that day. Now don’t get her wrong, she knew the type of spooky shit that went down around both of the podcast hosts. One had too many demons in her life than what was necessary, the other was starting to enter Fox Mulder-level of government conspiracies. Then there were the “experts” that accompanied the hosts too – one had too many fingers dipped into too many spooky pies while the other was such a good hacker that Joanna was sure she could hack alien technology if she wanted to.

It wasn’t even her idea to bring holy water in the first place! Glen, her boyfriend, insisted that she did when he finally finished listening to the Black Tapes Podcast. He originally was hesitant to listen since he wasn’t such a big fan of the suspense genre, but he did anyway as a means to support Joanna.

_Still,_ Joanna mused as she blindly placed the bottle of holy water into the breakroom refrigerator, _it’s not like anyone is allergic to holy water in the first place_. With that, she left the breakroom and went off to do her intern duties.

Cue Murphy, lovingly named by his parents after Murphy’s Law. He was asked earlier by Alex to prepare Strand’s usual tea during his visit that day to the station as well as some coffee for herself. A finicky tea drinker himself, he opened the refrigerator and grabbed a certain recently added water bottle. _This is still room temp… Good. It won’t take too long to heat up._

Murphy poured the contents of the bottle into a mug reserved for Strand (a gift from the interns saying ‘ALPHA SKEPTIC’) and placed it in the microwave for a good three minutes. This just enough to have the water reach boiling before adding a bag of tea from Nic’s tea shelf to steep for roughly 3 minutes. _A slightly bitter tea never hurt anyone_ , he thought as he also prepared Alex’s usual coffee in a mug reading ‘ALPHA BELIEVER’. _Nana always said that bitter tea builds character._

Grabbing the mugs, he quickly brought them to their owners. Murphy knocked on the door, trying not too hard to interrupt their conversation. “Just thought you guys would want something to wake you up this early in the morning,” he smiled awkwardly as he avoided Strand’s inquisitive stare.

Alex laughed, “Murph, its quarter ‘til 11! But thanks, we appreciate it.”

All Murphy got was a quiet thanks from Strand, who was hunched over some papers and pictures of what seemed to be crossroads and “spooky math”, as the other interns called it. With that, he quickly left the room, eager to leaving the two to their own devices and to get back to his own work as well.

Strand took a hold of his cup, his eyes never leaving the pictures in front of him. “So you see, these are the crossroads where reports are saying people have summoned with demons to make deals with.”

“Again with the demons, Strand? Why can’t it be butterflies instead?” Alex huffed as she continued to take careful sips of her coffee. “Why can’t people try summoning butterflies?”

The older man let out a nose laugh, “Because people are willing to turn to the supernatural instead.”

“I was trying to make a reference to Ron Weasley, you know.”

“That joke was a bit too far-fetched, Ms. Reagan,” he smirked and took a drink from his tea. Strand’s eyes widened greatly before visibly forcing himself to swallow. He began to have a coughing fit, placing his cup on the table and turning away from Alex to cough some more.

Naturally, Alex grew alarmed. “Holy crap, what’s wrong? Richard?” She got up to grab some tissues from her bag off to the side and handed them to him. “Richard, are you okay?”

Strand bowed his head towards the floor and continued to cough as he felt what could only be his insides burning. “I’m… I’m fine. The tea was a bit too hot, that’s all.” He gratefully took the tissues and coughed into them. “I might have inhaled some of the tea as well.”

“Murphy does tend to overdo the ‘hot’ in ‘hot drinks’.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Strand took a few deep breaths before recomposing himself. “Now where was I?”

Alex gave him a disbelieving look before slowly answering. “Crossroad demons?”

He nodded both to her and himself. “Ah yes, crossroad demons. Anyway, the very idea of it wasn’t popular or mainstream until the television series of _Supernatural_.”

“Strand?”

“It is possible that the contact these people have are just recreations of certain parts of the series in which one of the-“

“Strand?”

“Characters bury a box containing a picture of himself, dirt from a graveyard, and bones of a-“

“STRAND!”

The doctor frowned, disliking the interruption. “Yes, Ms. Reagan?”

Alex pursed her lips. “You’re smoking.”

Strand looked alarmed, “Excuse me?”

“You are literally smoking, Strand. As in you are emitting smoke.”

At first, he was confused. He was emitting smoke? How? There was no way he could be smoking. No possible way. But a small voice in the back of his head whispered singingly, “Yes there is, Richie. You know how.”

_How the hell did I come in contact with holy water?_


End file.
